Often times when people have difficulty sleeping it is because they are uncomfortable. Many factors go into determining the comfort level of a person. One of which that is not easily controlled is the temperature of their pillow. If the pillow is not within a comfortable temperature level the person can toss and turn all night trying to get comfortable. People will often times flip their pillow to try to keep it at a lower temperature. This is not an effective method of controlling the temperature of the pillow.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,468 to Bailey (1984) shows a device that uses a thermal cooler to control the temperature of a fluid and pump it through a blanket that can be placed on a person. The blanket is designed to be placed on top of a person. It could work in the same manner when placed on top of a pillow and it would be able to control the temperature of the pillow. This device is reliant upon a fluid pump to move the chilled fluid through the blanket.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,097,829 to Quisenberry (1992) is an improvement on the Bailey system in that it will stop the pump and the thermal electric cooler when the system has run out of fluid. This device also uses a pump to move the fluid through the blanket.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,741 to Grant (1995) is a flexible pad capable of heating or cooling an animal or human body part. This device uses thermoelectric modules to cool one side of the pad. The pad itself contains the thermoelectric modules and uses air moving through the pad to cool the hot side of the thermoelectric modules.
As with all of the aforementioned devices for cooling, none use a heat pipe as a method of moving heat away from the area being cooled. Heat pipes are generally composed of a tube, closed on each end, with fluid in it. One end takes in heat and the other expels it. The heat entering the xe2x80x9chotxe2x80x9d end of the tube boils the liquid which turns it into a vapor. The vapor expands in volume and travels to the xe2x80x9ccoldxe2x80x9d end where it condenses to a liquid and gives up its heat. The fluid is then returned to the hot end by gravity or a wick and starts the process again.
The present invention, henceforth known as the cooling pad, is a device for transferring heat away from a persons body part or pillow. The invention provides a flexible bladder for applying under a persons head or under said persons pillow containing a fluid, a tube connected to the bladder for moving fluid or vapor and a thermoelectric driven cooling unit for condensing the vapor. The bladder is a container comprised of an elastomer with good heat transferring properties containing a spongy pad and a fluid with a boiling temperature below room temperature. The tube is a means for the heated fluid or vapor to evacuate the bladder and move up to the cooling unit. The cooling unit removes the heat from the vapor and condenses it back in to a liquid. The cooled liquid is then able to flow back down to the bladder via the tube where the cycle begins again. The spongy pad within the bladder provides added comfort to the user and also acts as a wick to draw in the cooled liquid.
The cooling pad is novel device for providing heat relief without being cold like an icepack. The temperature of the cooling pad remains around room temperature there by providing heat relief without a cold feeling. This is particularly important for people who experience hot flashes. As the hot flash sets in the person heats up, the cooling pad absorbs the additional heat using a phase shift of the fluid to absorb the heat. When the fluid absorbs the heat it boils to become a vapor and evacuates the bladder along with the absorbed heat.